ABSTRACT

Insecurity has unquestionably generated intolerable levels of fear, anxiety, hopelessness and powerlessness in Nigeria. The Hobbesian State of Nature is a conceptual description of the political life of man in a hypothetical pre-political society before the emergence of democracy characterized by a lack of government, laws and authority.. It was put forward by Thomas Hobbes, an English Philosopher (1588-1679). The Hobbesian State of Nature is “a time of war where every man is enemy to every man” and a “time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal”. The question of insecurity in Nigeria can indeed be partly understood through the lens of the Hobbesian state of nature. Early political philosophers saw the provision of state security as essential for cementing the state-society relationship The paper is a philosophical look at the Nigerian state and the status quo and also examines some of the more specific and immediate causes of insecurity. Consequently, Insecurity in Nigeria has become so widespread and has taken so many lives on the daily basis. It then follows that something is wrong with our security affairs and also with the state called Nigeria which is contrary to the position of early political philosophers that the provision of state security is essential for cementing the state-society relationship. Finally, this work will help in re-emphasizing and fostering ways by which the problem of insecurity can be addressed even with the regrettably number of lives that have been lost.